For the past year, our Zimbra customers have probably been wondering if they would ever get anything new from us. Now, we actually have something for them. MxToolbox is upgrading Zimbra to the latest release on April 18th!
What does this mean?
This is a free upgrade that all current Zimbra users will receive with absolutely no work required of the user or customer. MxToolbox will cut everything over to the new version on April 18th during a short maintenance window.
New Features
(Borrowed shamelessly from Zimbra’s Site)
Zimbra Web Client
Streamlined User Interface
The Zimbra Web Client has been completely redesigned with a focus on simplicity and accessibility. The Zimbra 8 interface is more streamlined so that common actions are easily discoverable and highly intuitive to use.
Conversation View
In Zimbra 8 email is presented to users in a “natural” conversation view that makes reading and replying to messages convenient and intuitive. Quoted text is hidden and messages are laid out in a way that is easy for users to understand the “in-reply-to” relationship between different messages in the same email thread. Discreet links to Reply, Forward and More Actions (presented just below the email) let users respond to messages quickly and efficiently.
Rich Composition
Improved composition editor allows users to craft rich text emails, with features such as paste-style support from desktop applications and the ability to include inline images bring the power of desktop word processors to email.
Shared Tagging
In Zimbra 8 tagging functionality has been improved so that when items are shared users cannot only use tags to organize their data but also share these tags across applications as well as mailboxes.
Activity Streams
Activity Streams allows users extensive control over the messages that go to their Inbox. Users can easily set up activity stream filters that direct incoming messages to various folders (or are deleted from) based on different criteria that they can specify. For example, emails to distribution lists, feed and notifications that are not directly addressed to the user can be archived in folders that can be read when convenient.
“Graymail” filtering prevents user’s Inbox from being cluttered by legitimate but unwanted emails.
Dedicated Search Tab
A dedicated search tab is created whenever a user enters a new query in the header search box. This allows users to perform a search, navigate away from the search tab to perform another action such as compose an email, or schedule an event and then come back to the search tab to continue with the query.
Zimbra 8 provides users with a simple yet powerful search interface allowing users to perform simple actions such as quickly filter on common attributes or perform complex search queries making use of complex logical operators.
Enterprise Calendaring
Zimbra 8 provides an intuitive and sophisticated enterprise calendaring system that enables users to manage multiple calendars and provides support for advanced scheduling activities.
Zimbra 8 has significantly improved the user’s experience when working with the appointment scheduling feature. Once users select attendees, Zimbra 8 can compare calendar availability and provide users with a list of suggested meeting times. Similarly, based on meeting requirements such as the size of the room and location, Zimbra’s scheduler can provide users with a list of conference facilities that fit meeting requirements.
Merged and Split Day View options give users the flexibility to view their different calendars (e.g. personal and work-related) either individually or overlaid on top of each other. (In other words, see a “merged” view of appointments from several different calendars in one calendar.)
Landscape and date range printing provides users greater control over how calendars are printed.
Wizard to add external calendars when users right-click to create new calendars. Zimbra 8 supports importing several popular calendar formats including Google and Yahoo! Calendars.
Zimbra Mobile
Zimbra offers server side implementation of Microsoft’s ActiveSync 12.1 protocol providing end users access to their Zimbra mail on any mobile device that supports ActiveSync 12.1.
Auto Discovery
Auto-discover support enables seamless linkage between the user’s account on the Zimbra server and the email client on the mobile device when valid credentials (email and password) are supplied from the device.
Remote Device Wipe
In the event that the security of the mobile device is compromised administrators can perform a remote device wipe from the admin console, thus safeguarding against any loss of sensitive corporate data.
Bandwidth Reduction
Since most mobile devices are often on high latency, low bandwidth (reduced connectivity) networks, Zimbra’s ActiveSync implementation has been designed to operate at a reduced bandwidth.
Battery Optimization
ActiveSync protocol implementation has been optimized to conserve battery life for push enabled devices.
Persona/Alias Support
ActiveSync implementation provides push synchronization of email, contacts, calendars, tasks as well as the Persona/ Alias profile configurations associated with the user’s email address.
Advanced Administration Policies
The introduction of 30 new configuration policies provides administrators more fine-grained control over user accounts and approved applications – allowing them to enable/disable device software and hardware capabilities as necessary.
Unified Communications
Zimbra UC seamlessly integrates with leading voice systems to deliver all of your business communications in one place. Zimbra 8 is designed so that real-time communication services such as voice, telephony and presence inter-operate with non-real-time services such as email and voice mail – allowing users to benefit from faster response times and companies to benefit from higher group productivity.
Click-to-Call
Click-to-Call offers immediate voice connectivity with call-routing to device or soft-phone. This lets users take office calls at their office numbers on their mobile devices. Zimbra 8 supports the configuration of multiple numbers.
Presence
Presence provides real-time notification of user’s current availability and ability to communicate.
Visual Voice Mail
Visual voice mail lets users view caller and voicemail information and supports inline playback and management features. It also supports MWI (Message Waiting Indicator) status updates, allowing users to customize the way they want to be notified about new voicemail messages. These voice messages can be saved in either .wav or .mp3 format.
Call History
Call history includes information about voice mails received, placed calls, received calls, missed calls as well as details about date, time, and call duration.
IT & Administration
Outlook 2013
The Zimbra Connector for Outlook now works with Outlook 2013.
Retention Policies
Custom retention and disposal policies can be set on a folder-by-folder basis by end users, or enforced globally by IT.
Zimbra Admin Console
The Zimbra Admin Console has been completely redesigned to make administration easier.
If you have questions or issues as a result of this upgrade, or would like to add Zimbra services, please contact MxToolbox Toll Free at (866) 698-6652, or sales@mxtoolbox.com